Creation from Nothing

What was there before the beginning of Genesis 1? Adam had no father nor grandfather. He had no history books to read because there was no history.

R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996, c1985).

Jonathan Edwards once said that nothing is what sleeping rocks dream about. That doesn’t help much. My son offered me a better definition of “nothing.” When he was in junior high, I asked him when he came home from school, “What did you do today, son?” The reply was the same every day, “Nuthin.” So the best explanation I can give of “nothing” is “that which my son used to do every day in junior high.”

R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996, c1985).

Once there was nothing, then suddenly, by the command of God, there was a universe.

Again we ask, how did He do it? The only hint the Bible gives is that God called the universe into being. Augustine had a fancy word for that. He called it the “divine imperative” or the “divine fiat.

R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996, c1985).

Consider the raising of Lazarus from the dead. How did Jesus do it? He did not enter the tomb where the rotting corpse of Lazarus was laid out; he did not have to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He stood outside the tomb, at a distance, and cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” Blood began to flow through the veins of Lazarus and brain waves started to pulsate. In a burst of life Lazarus quit his grave and walked out. That is fiat creation, the power of divine imperative.

R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996, c1985).

There are modern theorists who believe that the world was created by nothing. Note the difference between saying that the world was created from nothing and saying that the universe was created by nothing.

R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996, c1985).